LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - An Arkansas Senate panel on Wednesday advanced a proposal to rewrite the state's lethal injection law after it was thrown out by the state Supreme Court last year.

The bill spells out in greater detail the procedures the state must follow in carrying out executions, including the type of chemical to be used in the lethal injection. If it were to become law, Arkansas could resume capital punishment, though additional litigation and other legal challenges would likely further delay executions.

Lawmakers have been trying to craft new, more specific death penalty legislation after the state Supreme Court said it was an unconstitutional for the Legislature to leave it up to the state Correction Department to decide what type of lethal drugs to use in an execution.

The proposal sponsored by Sen. Bart Hester, R-Carve Springs, and approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would require the state to carry out death sentences with a lethal dose of a barbiturate. A spokeswoman for the Department of Correction said it would move the state to a single-drug lethal injection, although the drug could be combined with another substance, such as a saline solution, if the drug manufacturer's instructions called for it.

The previous 2009 law allowed the director of the Department of Correction to choose one or more chemicals to be used in the lethal injection.

Arkansas hasn't put anyone to death since 2005. Of the 37 inmates on currently death row in Arkansas, eight men have exhausted all of their appeals are awaiting execution, according to Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who helped craft Hester's bill.

McDaniel told lawmakers that although he believes the bill resolves the Supreme Court's constitutional concerns, he expected the matter to be litigated further.

"I suspect that we will be facing litigation again just as soon as this statute becomes law because we're always going to be facing litigation in the world of capital punishment," he said. "But we have attempted to anticipate any concerns that could be raised."

In striking down the state's lethal injection law last year, the court did not rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection or the death penalty itself.

Opponents of capital punishment were energized last month when Gov. Mike Beebe said he had changed his mind on the death penalty and would sign a bill that ended the practice if it came to his desk. But the Democrat also indicated he doesn't plan to make repealing the death penalty part of his legislative agenda this session and won't be pressing any legislator to file a bill.

No lawmaker has filed a death penalty repeal bill in the Republican-controlled Legislature so far this session, and leaders from both parties have said they don't expect such a bill would pass.

Another death penalty bill, also sponsored by Hester, would allow certain relatives of victims to attend executions in person instead of watching them on closed-circuit TV. That bill passed the Senate on Tuesday by a 30-1 vote and is pending before a House committee.

The lethal injection measure approved Wednesday now heads to the Senate.